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Klain describes White House briefing and decision process, chain of custody for presidential memos
Summary
In a transcribed interview, Ronald Klain described standard White House practices for briefing books and decision books, the staff secretary role, classified decision-book handling and the chain of custody for presidential decisions; he said the president typically reviewed and initialed memos and that staff filtered material to the Oval Office.
Ronald Klain told the House Oversight Committee that while he was White House chief of staff he participated in a well-established process for presenting issues and options to the president.
Klain described two types of papers that the president received: briefing memos (to inform) and decision memos (to request a presidential decision). He said the staff secretary (during his term Jessica Hertz and later Neera Tanden) prepared and routed memos, and that he personally read memos before they went to the president. "When memos were ready to go to the president, they went to the president," Klain said; the…
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